Fair priced holidays during school holidays

Tardis_2

Great idea!....as a single parent of 3 it is expensive and as usual companies do their best to make money out of us during the holidays as we now get wrists slapped if we take our darlings out of school....ANOTHER reason why people are leaving this country in droves......we are next!! Which reminds me....anyone know of a good cd and/or Spanish Language course. Ta!

budgetflyer

Tardis, Spanish Steps from the BBC is a great start. Free too

Often when my lot were young, being a family of 5, get hit all ways, so
we'd get the train to Manchester or Birmingham for a cheap flight.
A late June/early July flight costing £300 from Scotland, will maybe only be £60 from England.

The other benefit being, we wouldnt need to sit on a plane full of chavs with Celtic + Rangers tops on.:rotfl:

Top tip, after 2 weeks, with beer, sweat and chili sauce from your late night kebab-the football top youve worn for the last ten days in the "Ibrox Bar" or "Jinkies tavern" is now starting to smell a tad !:rolleyes:

SundayGirl

Tardis - I like the Michel Thomas Language courses; haven't tried the Spanish, but the French and German ones are very good. Quite expensive to buy, but you should be able to borrow from your local library.

ccygirl

I have 3 children and summer holidays are v expensive. I try to book independently as this works out cheaper than paying for one child as an adult. France is a good holiday, I was able to hire a caravan near la rochelle for £800 for 2 weeks in august. I don't think I could hire one here that cheap. You do have to pay road tolls and there are more expenses but on the whole the weather should be better than here.

bargainbarmy

We always go 2nd week of June as its still primary school holidays in England but you can get a reasonably cheap deal, much cheaper than the May bank hol week.

tiff

We tend to go May and October school holidays. I book flights and accommodation separately which can work out really cheap compared to brochure prices. We are going to Spain in August this year, flights for 4 with BMI Baby £413. The accommodation is free as its a friends villa but if we had to pay it would be £300. There are ways round it, planning well in advance can be very cheap too.

whambamboo

I think this is ridiculous. Too many people want to go on holiday in school holidays. They cannot satisfy the demand.

If you're a holiday company, you've got a fixed number of holidays to sell - the hotel rooms don't go anywhere. But 1.5 million people would prefer to go on holiday in August, and only 0.5 million in June.

Unless they make August more expensive than June, there's no incentive for people to go outside of the peak time. So they lose lots of money.

Whereas if they say you can go in August for £500 or June for £200, then people can take the choice - go when it's quieter and the company needs to fill space, or go when it's busy and pay more. It's absurd that they would charge the same price when they can sell the holiday three times over.

You just need to be more creative - book in advance, go at different times, spend more time on research, whatever.

I'm going to Tenerife next week, on Good Friday, one of the busiest days of the year, (coming back Easter Sunday) and I'm paying £40 pp + taxes for the return flights. Of course I could easily have spent £600 pp on flights to Sharm el Sheikh, but I didn't, I shopped around and got a cheap deal, not to my first choice destination, but it's still a nice break. The options are out there.

There's *plenty* of cheap flights available in August (http://www.skyscanner.net/gbp/flights-from/uk/august-2007/august-2007/cheapest-flights-from-united_kingdom-in-august-2007.html) to pretty much the destination of your choice. You've got a six-week window, and it's not hard to get flights for <£100/person.

Do the legwork (and it can take quite a lot), and a cheap holiday is possible at any time of year.

Sam_Bee

I re-affirm creative holidays for school children during our lovely summer weather is in the UK!

Youth Hostels, walking, B&B's, seeing how beautiful our own country is, contributing to our own local economy, nice weather, great beaches...

Overseas holidays are a (polluting) luxury surely, should never be seen as a right or necessity?

Some great family rooms in Youth Hostels in Lake District - very cheap too!

Woodyrocks

I am also a single parent of one (6yr old) and even though we don't go abroad we always have 2 holidays a year + 1 music festival w/e. Last year was Womad and its the Green man this summer.

I second the YHA comment. I am a member and we can even stay in the international hostels on the cheap. We spent last summer in Cornwall and off to Liverpool this Easter, I shall book our summer holiday is North Wales in advance to guarantee the best choices of dates. You can join online at http://www.yha.org.uk/. I also have a young persons railcard (mature students over 26 can apply) so I save money on train tickets and my Daughter is permanently 'just about to turn 5' so I only purchase a ticket for me. Naughty but saves a bit of change which can go on activities on holiday.

To get cheap tickets to family friendly music festivals during school holidays, I always check out http://www.scarletmist.com/default.asp, the site is also the best for getting cheap tickets to sold out gigs.

mrs_scrooge

Like most people I'd love to pay less but I just accept it's supply and demand and so don't blame anyone.

I'm also dead against holidays in termtime particularly at secondary school level (no I'm not a teacher). It must be a nightmare for the teachers and disruptive for others. If you want your kids educated you should play by the rules IMO........and I don't buy into all the excuses like 'giving little Jonny an experience we couldn't afford if we took holidays when we are supposed to ' etc etc!!! We could all say that but if we all acted on it the classrooms would be half empty.

Getting off my soapbox now and ducking!!!!!!



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